IAN SWEET Nails the Finger Roll On ’23’

August in a nutshell: a large populous of acrimonious people cannot spell Colin Kaepernick’s name correctly on Facebook posts. Greta Kline’s lithe vocals in Frankie Cosmos makes for great sk8boarding music. Lydia Lund’s powerfully visceral turn on Chastity Belt’s “Lydia” will be a well-documented American songbook classic that makes it into every Library of Congress time capsule. And IAN SWEET’s ’23’ hits its shot with a picturesque, wrist-flipping finger roll. Smooth as a MJ three-pointer from downtown. Gnarly as a Kevin Garnett scowl. The Hardly Art band is releasing “Shapeshifter” on the ninth of September, and is available for pre-order, as I keep telling everyone in our 45 square-foot Cinema Spartan office in San Diego.

In ’23’, Jilian Medford of IAN SWEET muses in a crestfallen lilt over a distorted sequence of reveries. The ethereal composition feels of saltwater and sand, overcast skies and curled photographs. Everything realized and lost. Pair this bouquet of sadness to IAN SWEET’s accompanying Coney Island waltz, and you have an aesthetic and auditory surge of thoughtful comfort (come for the yipping dogs and skeletons, stay for the Sam Fuller-like “Naked Kiss” reveal). As MTV would say in 1998 after a Cam’ron video: cop this album. IAN SWEET is your new favorite soundtrack to the fall of 2016. Cotton candy fallout forever.

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The program director of the Olympia Film Society, Rob is also a former San Diego Film Critics Society member. He has written for The East County Californian, The Alpine Sun, The East County Herald, The San Diego Entertainer, and the San Diego Reader. When he isn't curating a film festival, he is drinking rosé out of a plastic cup in Seattle or getting tattoos from Jenn Champion.